Mr. Speaker, I join the Prime Minister in congratulating Team Canada, the on ice and snow version. Canada's men's and women's hockey teams did us proud in bringing the gold back to Canada. Overall this was Canada's most successful winter games.
Canadians will never forget the amazing success of Jamie Sale and David Pelletier who accepted silver with class and without complaint. The whole world knew that they deserved gold that they eventually won.
We will never forget Marc Gagnon and Catriona LeMay Doan who were golden in speed skating; Clara Hughes, the first Canadian to win medals in both the winter and summer games; Haley Wickenheiser, who led our women's hockey team to victory; and so many other Olympians.
We will always remember Sakic, Lemieux, Iginla, Yzerman, Fleury, that great goaltender Brodeur, and the rest of the star-studded men's hockey team ably led by Pat Quinn and Wayne Gretzky. They brought back to Canada, after 50 years, what is rightfully ours. I hope the Prime Minister is sitting here 50 years from now waiting for the next one, maybe on the opposite side.
Yesterday's event was probably the greatest sporting moment in Canadian history since Paul Henderson scored his famous goal against the Soviet Union 30 years ago.
Canadians are a winter people, living in a land that Voltaire called quelques arpents de neige, a few acres of snow, and Bob and Doug McKenzie called the great white north. The ice and snow of a Canadian winter cannot chill our hearts and spirits for we have learned how to warm ourselves with the thrill of winter sports.
The only thing that could possibly surpass the thrill of these games would be to repeat these same successes again on home ice so to speak at the Vancouver Whistler Olympic Games of 2010.